the question that needs asking
Would you have paid £27,000 for your degree?
Thankfully, it’s not a question I needed to ask at the time. My maximum grant award, conservative spending habits, penchant for week-long chilli con carne and tuition fees being no more than a twitch in Michael Gove’s father’s trousers, meant I entered the academic world of higher education with n’er a care in the world and left without a penny’s debt to my name. However, as we all now know , the game’s changed and the question now has to be asked and answered by everyone intending to spend three years potentially building for their future. This includes my own wee boy, Tom, who’s hopefully off to Warwick next year to read History & Politics.
If I’d have had to ask that question in 1982 I’m pretty sure the answer would have been a resounding no. Being a traditional and typical working-class family we were not, by anyone’s imagination stretch, wealthy and that amount of debt (even taking account of the inflation adjustment) would have been inconceivable. It would also have been completely against everything that I’d been taught about debt and credit. Even though the tele was ‘on-tick’ and catalogues provided most of the things we needed on a weekly scheme, I’d been brought up to believe that if you didn’t have the money you didn’t get the good. Faced with three year’s of credit and a potential lifetime of repayment I would not have progressed past A levels. Simple as.
With hindsight however and knowing what I know now, I would have paid. Perhaps not gladly as I still believe education, as one of the central tenets of the welfare state, should remain free, but pay it I would. My education has been the best investment of my life and everything I am today stems from this time. A university education shapes you and it shapes your future.
Back in 1982 however, we did still have a choice. Most of my pals from school went into the manufacturing sector or ‘got a trade’ via the buoyant, supported and vocationally oriented apprenticeship scheme. Many from college donned their white-collars and progressed into middle-management via retail and the civil service. Do these options now exist? Both the manufacturing and traditional engineering sectors have long since gone, taking with them their active support of the apprentice. Retail’s still here but along with catering, leisure and tourism, no-one seems to want to go into it any longer. The public sector remains the largest UK employer but it would appear you ain’t getting in these days without a degree.
The unconditional advice I’m giving to Tom is to go, and the debt be damned. But, and here’s the rub, he needs to think about it properly and he himself needs to weigh-up the pro’s and con’s and make the right decision for the right reason. I chose Sheffield because a pal of mine told me about a town-centre pub which had it’s ceiling painted as the night’s sky and the whole city promoted a wild, debauched, yearly student event, pyjama jump. Seeing it portrayed in The Sun one year was the clincher! Business Studies was the only course I could get on with my mediocre grades and a Polytechnic ensured my experience was more breeze-block than red-brick.
As it turned out, I was lucky. Future students though can’t really on good fortune and the decisions they take need to be based on fact and accurate information. If they’re paying up to £9,000 a year, they need to make it work. When selecting the general field of study they need to ask ‘can I excel in this field, can I be better than others?’ If the answer’s yes then look into it further; if it’s no then don’t waste your time for one more second as it’s worth neither the drama nor the debt. It also helps if you pick a field you do enjoy and can get up a level of passion and enthusiasm about the subject.
Once you’ve decided on the field you need to choose the actual degree wisely. Get out your crystal ball and try to gauge what the economy will want in a few years time. If a sector of the economy is growing it’s more likely there’ll be a job for you at the end. The days of graduating and falling into any career that you choose, irrespective of your qualification are long gone. A good degree, from a well-respected uni is important but what’s often more important is the classification you ultimately receive. You’d be crazy not to question the validity and worth of a third in media-studies from De Montfort.
The last piece of advice I’ll give Tom is learn to cook a mean spag bol, invest in home-brewing, condoms are free from family-planning clinics, pay no attention to sell-by dates and never, ever shop at a supermarket before 7.00pm!
